


Why Did It Have To Be The Baker?

by KBLEAGHS



Category: KBLE, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Folk of the Air - Holly Black, kble all girls highschool
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Assassination, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Magic, Magic School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KBLEAGHS/pseuds/KBLEAGHS
Summary: There has been a murder in town, and the school had gone into lockdown until the headmasters figures out who did it. Everyone is turning on each other, suspecting each other and there’s a mysterious, untrustworthy feeling in the air.
Kudos: 3





	Why Did It Have To Be The Baker?

The Great Hall was surprisingly quiet as the girls walked in for their breakfast. Most of the time the freshmen and sophomore students were screaming and threatening each other, the juniors endorsing it, whilst the seniors laughed at the teachers who were growing more aggravated. The sandstone walls held paintings and art works from around the globe, with marble statues of famous warriors across times and countries. These statues weren’t just situated in the Great Hall, they were also featured in the classrooms that were named after. 

The nine marble statues in the hall towered over the girls, showcasing their power and presence in the room. On the right hand side of the room held Artemisia I of Caria, a naval commander for the Greeks, then on each side of her were the Trưng Sisters, Vietnamese military leaders where it was rumoured that they rode elephants into battle. On the left hand side was the Chihenne Chiricahua Apache warrior Lozen, who was also known to be a prophet, then Fatima Al-Fihri who created and was the founder for the al-Qarawiyyin mosque in 859 CE which later became a university, and Ching Shih a Chinese pirate during the Qing dynasty. Then in the middle back of the room was Queen Arawelo, a Somalian Queen who fought for female empowerment, Queen zenobia the warrior queen of Palmyrene Empire, and Queen Boudicca the leader of the British Celtic tribe and fought against the Roman Empire invasion. Each statue held a plaque with information that the girls had to learn in their first year. They had to know their triumphs and how these women became remarkable leaders, warriors, educators in their time. 

However, this morning when the girls woke up, their teacher head of house had them all wait in their common room, and they all went down together. They were instructed to sit in their houses, only something they did on the first and last days of term. They also took a register and were very diligent about all the girls being on time and sitting quietly. 

No one knew what was going on. 

No one was talking, only a slight murmur went through the hall. Even when the food was brought out, the only thing that could be heard was the “thank yous” and the sound of metal scraping against each other. 

It was only after everyone had finished breakfast that Eliana, the Head Girl, walked up onto the small staged platform at the end of the hall, her two deputies following her. None of their faces looked happy or held their usual warmth. It was clear from the dazed look in their eyes, as well as the bags underneath them, that something bad had happened last night. Eliana usually gave the morning announcements, but it was odd for Artemis and Elin to be up there as well. 

“As you may well know,” Eliana started, her voice rising slightly. Usually she had to fight to get everyone to stay silent, but the room hung on to her every word. “You were all registered this morning before coming into breakfast, something we haven’t needed to do in a long while. Last night, Mr and Mrs Greenbriar were going through Bleakfolk, when they heard about something. My deputies and I were told that there has been a murder.” 

Questions started being flying at Eliana, whose face stayed as stoic as she could make it. The girls were all talking rapidly to each other, their voices rising, asking questions about who was the victim, the murder weapon, and where it happened. Elin and Artemis exchanged a glance, a worried expression shared on their faces. 

Luckily, Eliana only had to raise her voice slightly and the girls were quiet again. “I know you have a lot of questions, when you get into your homeroom they will be answered to the best of their abilities. As it is half-term, there are no lessons this week. However, because of these recent events, the teachers and I have decided that you will be in your homerooms for the day, the year groups will be mixed up, and at the end of this you will go to your assigned homeroom. We will be acting in place of the teachers today -”

“How do we know it wasn’t one of you?” Someone called out, it was hard to know who exactly. All the girls started talking again, throwing threats and disparities towards the girl who spoke out. Even though the question was valid, to interrupt someone, especially during an announcement, was seen as highly disrespectful. 

Eliana sighed, not entirely surprised by this outburst, “girls, she has a point. There is no particular way for you to trust us. But what I can say, and I have teachers to approve of this, is that the deputies and I were in a meeting last night with the remaining teachers, coming up with activities for this week to keep you all occupied. The teachers are now preoccupied with this investigation, so that is why they have put us as your home room advisers. The rest of the seniors will also be put into your classes, so we can keep an eye on you.

“As assassins, the essence of murder does not phase us. However, this murder was unjustified and there was no reason for that to happen. We have a code and one of you broke it. I know how this school works, so I do not want to hear speculations. If you have any concrete evidence or any factual reasoning as to who may have done it, you must speak to myself, the two deputies, Selene, or find your homeroom teacher. When we find out who has done this, there will be severe punishment to those involved.” 

Eliana and the deputies walked off stage towards their assigned classrooms, as they awaited for the students to join them. The Heads of Houses organised for the girls to go back to their dorms to get their school work, as many had planned to go into the town today. The girls entered quietly with their bags, sitting at the free desks available, their faces not showing the joy and excitement that they usually held. Artemis was surprised when no one started asking questions, as the students got straight to their work. There was a soft knock at the door, Iris walked in holding Artemis’ school bag. 

“You left this, I thought I would get it for you,” Iris said, her face grave. “You didn’t sleep much last night did you.” 

“I never do anyway.” Artemis replied, thanking her house mate. As Iris started to walk out, Artemis called out to her. “You’re with Elin right?”

Iris nodded, her eyebrows creasing, “”yeah, why?”

“She may need help with some of the students. They may not listen to her because she is a sophomore, so she may need you to step in to tell the girls to listen to her.” 

“Will do,” she replied. “I’ll see you later.” 

The room was quiet for nearly three hours before someone asked a question. The girls had got stuck into their school work, but soon the curiosity hit them. Most of them struggled to focus on the tasks in front of them, waiting for the others to start asking questions. 

“Do you think it could be FSoD?” Hestia, a young freshmen, asked. Hestia was in the same house as Artemis, and worked a lot with Iris on helping her with alchemy. “They are also capable of this.” 

“I don’t know in all honesty,” Artemis replied, putting her pencil down, thanking Hestia for a reason to ignore her economics homework. “None of the teachers mentioned them and were pretty adamant that it was someone from this school. I just don’t think anyone at this school would do that. Attack someone like that.” 

Another freshman, Cleo, a dagger student asked, “do you think that they could do something like that?”

“Probably,” Zephyrine, a junior, replied, her face not leaving her notebook. “They are training assassins like us. I’ve heard that their headmaster is a lot more cruel than ours. He doesn’t view his students as people, he sees them as killing machines. That he will stop at nothing to be on top.” 

The girls started whispering, but Artemis caught Zephyrine’s dark brown eyes. Without having to say anything, she knew what Zephyrine was thinking. 

Two years prior, when Zephyrine and the rest of the juniors started as freshmen, there was competition week. The two schools went up against each other and it was fun. However on the last day, when there were the representatives, the air changed. FSoD fought hard, they always had done, excelling in physical combat over magic. However, in one of the fights, it was clear that FSoD was winning. It was a hand to hand combat fight, one versus one, and the KBLE representative clearly lost. She looked broken and bruised. Even when the announcer declared the FSoD representative declared him the winner, he still continued to attack the girl, until Matthias and Nina pulled him off and sedated him. From that day on, KBLE had an official rule stating that the level of violence shown on that day was unacceptable. The headmaster of FSoD agreed, but everyone could tell how insincere it was. But that meant that the girls of KBLE had to fight harder and stronger.

What pulled Zephyrine out of her thoughts was when Amabo, a dagger sophomore asked, “what were the details of the murder then?” 

Artemis sighed, “her name was Miss Villianette, late last night she was found in the middle of the square dead. The cause of death seems to be strangulation, but there were also sporadic knife wounds in her chest.” 

“Mrs Villianette, why do I recognise that name?” Cleo asked, closing her book. Most of the other students had done the same, their eyes wide and attentive. It was clear that they weren’t going to be focusing on their school work, and were dedicated to this case.

“You know the local bakery, Cake a Diem,” Artemis began, the girls’ heads nodding. “She was the owner and used to be the head baker. Her daughter and granddaughter help her run it. She makes those Cherry Bakewells that the Juniors love.”

“They are very good,” mumbled Emma. “I can’t believe that someone killed the baker.” 

“The baker? The murderer must be heartless,” Amabo said, causing some girls to glare at her.

“Was that supposed to be a pun?”

Amabo shrugged, “all I know is that myself and Astrid are innocent.” 

This started an uproar of “I’m innocent” or “it couldn’t have been me.” But what worried Artemis was how quickly the girls started attacking each other. Artemis had her own suspicions, but she couldn’t voice them aloud. 

“Girls,” she shouted, which luckily they listened to. “I hope that no one here has caused this. It is also not helpful to start accusing each other, especially without proper reasoning.” 

Some of the younger girl’s faces looked confused, but Amabo clarified for them. “You can’t just accuse someone without evidence or a motive. For example, I couldn’t just turn around and say it was Eliana without reasoning. But I could say I think it is Ada, Selene and Minal, because I saw them acting suspicious last night, and I saw them pay Minal a lot of money. Maybe that is so she wouldn’t snitch.”

Emma hummed, “perhaps.” 

Ada, the only one of the three in the room jumped to her feet, “why are you suspecting me!”

Before there was a complete uproar, Artemis said, “even if that is the case, it is unfair to attack someone when they aren’t in the room to defend themselves.” 

“Maybe it’s you Artemis?” Emma said, a small smile on her face. 

Artemis knew that it was a joke, but she hadn’t slept much the night prior and was not in the mood to joke. Her voice was hard as she responded, “I’m trained to use a bow and arrow, if I were to conduct an open assassination I wouldn’t do what this murder had done.” 

“No?”

“I am not good at close distance fighting. I don’t have the abilities to strangle someone or to stab them. I would have hid near the bell tower, opposite her shop, and fired an arrow from there.” She saw the worried look on the girl’s faces as she realised that she may have given them a reason that she may have helped. “Besides, I wouldn’t murder a bread maker.”

“You do eat half a loaf at breakfast,” Emma said, her smile encouraging Artemis slightly. “Maybe we should be thinking about who definitely didn’t kill her and work our way backwards.”

All the girls nodded and started writing down their own list of who it couldn’t be. Amabo turned around in her chair and started, “I know it wasn’t Aria because even if she wanted to, she couldn’t murder a person like that. She also wouldn’t murder a seventy year old sapphic baker.” 

Hestia also chimed in, just as the bell rang for lunch, “it isn’t me because where would I buy my baked goods if I killed her.”

—0—

“How was your session?” Artemis asked Elin at lunch, as she sat down with her food, her head cradled in her arms. Elin looked at her, her eyes tired. 

“Everyone started attacking everyone,” Elin sighed, pushing her food around her plate. “I really hope it isn’t anyone from this school. Imagine what it would do to the dynamic. Oh, hi Eliana. How was your session?”

Eliana shrugged seating down next to her, “it was alright. I may have made a rule that if they spoke they would have to run a lap around the school for every letter spoken. I just didn’t want to handle it. I can’t believe that she is dead.” 

“Me neither,” Elin replied, as Artemis fell asleep, her head resting on the table. “I just don’t think that anyone from this school could do that. I truly don’t.”

“We are trained assassins, remember. We all have the capabilities to murder anyone we want and fake the remorse.” Eliana said, her voice low, not wanting anyone else to hear. “The thing that makes us different from FSoD is that we have compassion for those who don’t deserve death.”

“What do you mean?”

“They haven’t told you?” 

Elin shook her head, “not exactly. All they have told us is that two years ago the FSoD broke the trust of KBLE in one of the end of year competitions. Ever since then there has been tension between them. I just thought it was just some intense competition.”

“Not exactly,” Eliana said softly. “All you need to know is that in that competition one of their fighters continued fighting even when the bell and the announcer told them to stop. That may not seem like a big deal, but with these competitions and the skill sets juniors and seniors have, following those rules are highly important, so no one ends up -”

Eliana struggled to finish her sentence, memories swarming back to her, but when she saw Artemis’ eyes, she caught her breath and refocused. “Because of that competition, that is why we have the no murder rule.”

“As if that should be a rule,” Artemis said, her voice filled with venom, making Elin jump, her not realising that the girl opposite even woke. 

“I just remember seeing the sadistic smile on that Headteacher’s face, as if he enjoyed seeing one of his student nearly murder ours.” Elin’s stomach started to sink as she saw the seniors’ faces. “I just can’t believe they didn’t tell you. I understand not wanting to scare the freshmen, but I thought they would tell the sophomores.” 

Artemis shifted, moving her fork between her fingers, “maybe they were waiting until they became juniors and started competition training.”

“But acting as if nothing happened, that doesn’t sit right,” Eliana started, “having these balls and lessons together, and not discussing it.”

Artemis only looked at Eliana and shrugged, as if saying it’s not our problem to worry about. “But as you already know, not everyone at that school is a completely murderous villain.”

“Even though there are some wonderful people at that school, some I may say are friends, but many there are almost emotionless. They struggle to understand that not everything needs to be solved with violence and fists. There are some exceptions obviously, and I don’t want you to fear them, but just understand that they are trained very differently from us.”

“In what way?”

“You know how in your Freshmen PE lessons you learn how to disarm, defend yourself, but most importantly defend your partner. At that school, they try to strip you down to your animal instincts, so that the instinct to protect becomes the instinct to attack. There is no flight or fight, it is only fight. It is always a fight to the death.”

“It is very hard to shift that mind set,” Artemis said

Elin nodded, “but it can be shifted right?”

“I think it can, it just takes a lot of patience and time,” Artemis replied, with a sad smile, “the juniors are more hesitant about it though. They have a really hard time trusting the FSoD students.”

“We are only telling you this because you are a deputy. If the school hasn’t told you it is for a reason.” Eliana softly put her arm around Elin and gave her a soft squeeze. “Either way, that isn’t something for you to worry about. From what I have seen, after the added rule, the new students don’t seem as blood lustful. Something that people don’t realise about assassins is that we get to pick and choose who and how we kill, this means we can choose if we think a person deserves to die.” 

Elin didn’t reply, but she couldn’t shake the tight feeling in her chest. 

—0—

They returned to the homeroom all whispering as they had spent the entire lunch break theorising about what had happened. 

“I thought of something over lunch,” Zephyrine said, her voice breaking the thick atmosphere in the room. “The fact that she was both strangled and stabbed shows she didn’t go down as easy as they thought. Meaning that they probably underestimated her and her skills.” 

Amabo nodded, “a group of us at lunch thought the same thing. I suspect it was two people working together. 

I suspect someone had a dagger but lacked the physical strength” Cleo started, her voice scratchy, “so someone had to hold her back thus strangulation.”

“What I don’t understand,” Artemis said, biting the skin around her nails, “is what was the motive. Why attack her like that? Why was she even attacked in the first place?”

“Maybe she was in a criminal organisation planning to blow up the school because her family hates magic users,” Amabo joked, a glint in her eyes. The rest of the girls started to chuckle as Amabo continued. “She was a person we would suspect the least, and the town they brought her the explosives and she smuggled them in her bread basket. She was planning to come to the school, and blow it up.”

“Amabo are you okay?” Hestia asked, trying to suppress her smile.

Amabo shook her head, “I have no clue what I’m saying.”

“It’s okay Amabo,” Artemis chuckled, “you guys need to start doing more of your work. We were told by the teachers at lunch, when you finish your work you can go back to your dorms.”

—0—

Much like lunch, dinner was quiet, but the teachers were here standing at the back. Jude and Cardan were in the front, talking in hushed tones. There was a third body, hidden in the light, their back towards the girls who were sitting quietly at their tables. At least they were able to sit with their friends from other years. 

Cardan turned around, facing the girls, the girls going instantly quiet, his dark eyes had a small glimmer in them. He held his hand out and the person that the girls couldn’t name grabbed his, and stepped into the light. The girls gasped and yelled. There was Mrs Villianette, alive, well, and seemingly not in any harm. She even had a basket of baked goods. 

“You’re alive?” Someone called out, asking the question that everyone was thinking.

“Of course I am,” she says with a big smile, “I may be old, but I am very difficult to kill." 

Artemis and Elin turned to Eliana, who had a small smile on her face. But it was Elin who spoke, “you knew didn’t you? That she wasn’t dead.” 

Eliana nodded her head, but didn’t respond. Artemis chuckled and shook her head, “that speech you did this morning was pretty remarkable for someone to know about the fake murder.”

“What can I say,” she said, her smile growing, “to be a good assassin, you need to lie.” 

Elin shook her head but let out chuckle as Cardan guided Mrs Villainette to a seat that Jude pulled out for her. 

"Mrs Villianette used to be a pupil at this school. The juniors were telling me about her bakery, Cake a Diem, so I thought I would have a look. I was grabbing some of the Bakewell Tarts, which were wonderful by the way.” Cardan started talking, and the faces on the students started to shift, from surprise to anger. Mrs Villianette’s face held a bashful smile as her cheeks became rosy when Cardan spoke. “We got to talking. She mentioned the school and different activities that she did. One was investigating assassination attempts to see what they did well and what could have been improved.” 

“You lied to us!”

Cardan shrugged, pretending not to hear the comment. “As agreed with your homeroom teachers, by the first Monday back we expect a report about this investigation as well as areas that this fake assassination could improve on and what you can learn from it.”

The next day, when the girls woke up and went to breakfast, Mrs Villianette was there at the front of the room, with her granddaughter handing out various types of pastries and small cakes to the students. Throughout the next week, the girls went into the local town to work on their assignments. Before stopping at the library or the local park, the girls would go Cake a Diem, to buy their lunch for the day. By the end of the week, Mrs Villianette’s daughter had put out a small seating area for the girls and her mother. Mrs Villanette helped the girls with their homework when she could, although she did complain about how the girls relied too much on the technology and magic to help them. 

Even though that day was full of tension that the school hadn’t felt in a long time, but the girls learned a lot about how to plan an assassination, where to carry it out, and things they hadn’t thought about before. As well, they had gained a great ally in the Baker family, as they helped the girls learn tricks and techniques that came with not relying on power or technology.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please visit our tumblr page: https://kble-hs.tumblr.com
> 
> Written by: Artemis


End file.
